A new book investigates our relationship with the malleable substance that's wrecking our environment and our DNA

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April 26, 2011 5:01AM (UTC)

We're all stuck in Plasticville, intimately yoked to "a variety of synthetica" that makes our lives more livable. Yet, as the subtitle suggests, our passionate, decades-long affair has an evil flipside: This marvelously malleable material imperils the environment, wrecks our genes, and diminishes our very humanity.

It's powerful stuff. Science writer Susan Freinkel begins her evenhanded investigation of this twisted relationship by trying to count the number of plastic things she touches throughout the course of a day; in just 45 minutes, she has listed almost as many. Zeroing in on eight common objects lets Freinkel create her own comprehensive narrative polymer. Combs and chairs, for example, show how early experiments created new substances, which allowed for aesthetic innovations. Beauty, formerly the provenance of the wealthy, suddenly became available to everyone.

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Disposable lighters and plastic bags, on the other hand, illustrate our descent into a "shop and toss" mentality, one that the West has begun rapidly exporting. She visits factory workers making Frisbees in China and anti-plastic activists in California. Ultimately, she favors a sensible approach: acceptance of plastics' ubiquity, followed by behavior modification (carrying reusable bags to the grocery store, reducing consumption, buying products that are built to last, and so on). "In today's world, there are no perfect choices," she writes. "All we can do is be aware of the tradeoffs." Seriously eco-minded readers might not find much new here, but the recently green and the not yet converted will find "Plastic: A Toxic Love Story" full of facts worth mulling.